High Drama at Militia Sentencing, Jeanne Devon’s account of the sentencing of 2-4-1 Militia co-defendants Lonnie and Karen Vernon, makes for some interesting — and unsettling — reading. It’s striking how close these two really-real folks mirror characters from Parke Godwin’s Waiting for the Galactic Bus, from Roy Stride’s psycho-sexual hatreds and paranoia:

[Lonnie Vernon:] “I demand due process. You’re throwing me in jail. You’re declaring war on my country. I was born a free man on the land, with all my sovereign rights invoked. I wrote it down and sent it to all of you, and your little whored out buddy (Eric) Holder, and Hillary Clinton.” […] “You’re a bunch of perverts!” he went on, describing a cedar chest that belonged to his wife that the couple had in their bedroom. The chest was searched by the FBI when they raided the house. “You and your pervert faggot buddies put fuck magazines in the chest that had three generations of heirlooms in it!”

to Charity Stovall’s (initial) meek compliance:

[Judge Robert Bryan] looks at [Karen Vernon], head in hand. He, like the rest of us, appears to be struggling with the schism between Vernon’s demeanor, and her husband’s – between who she appears to be, and what she has actually done.

“You can’t escape responsibility because it may have been your husband’s idea. Why didn’t you say no up front?”

“I did say no, and no, and no and no. Over and over. ‘Don’t say things. Don’t say things that are threatening, that someone else will think is threatening.’ I said no to the grenades. We can’t afford ‘em. We don’t need ‘em.”

She pauses for a moment in anguish, weighing the question, and composing herself.

“…and I just finally gave in. And when I’m with him sometimes my mouth overruns my thought process. That happens with a lot of people… or maybe it doesn’t. I didn’t want him to feel… The guy was offering him work, and I didn’t want to stand in the way, and cause him to say, ‘You lost me that job.’”

And in both cases, fact and fiction, you get the feeling only one person will come out the other side of their story enlarged, while the other will twist ever deeper upon his own fears.